I feel disappointed by my performance today in the corporate challenge

I just finished with the corporate challenge pistol shoot. It is my first time participating in a big formal competition. Normally I participate in steel shooting, but this was bullseye shooting. 35 seconds, 12 rounds, 1 reload. 3 times at 15, 12, and 7 yards. I think the target is just a standard pistol qualification target. I scored 333 out of a possible 360 and felt very disappointed because I had done better in practice. I finished each stage too early and although my sights seemed perfect at the time my rounds went to the left slightly as usual. For some reason I can be very accurate with single shots but when I have to do more than one I end up a little to the left.

I trained to shoot first at 7 and then shoot at the big hole I made at 15 but during the actual event they started us out at 15, so that could have messed me up. I was also pretty tired from waiting around a long time at the range to compete and I pretty much ended missing lunch because I thought we would be done much sooner.

So, my first time out, but I feel pretty depressed over my performance. Maybe I can post pictures of my targets later.

Here's one I did at 21 feet only...30 rounds under no presure to see how my sights were aligned.

Looking at your group, I say pay more attention to you sight alignment/picture. Also are you "chasing holes"? What I mean by that is I've seen a lot of shooters who subconciously fail to maintain the same aiming point, and end up aimimg for the hole of their last shot.

Try a no preasure close range shooting session to see where your group actually is. And then practice, practice , practice. =)

Looking at your group, I say pay more attention to you sight alignment/picture. Also are you "chasing holes"? What I mean by that is I've seen a lot of shooters who subconciously fail to maintain the same aiming point, and end up aimimg for the hole of their last shot.

^^^^^^^^^ This

Thor would be correct, here. Sounded more like you were "chasing holes" and that in your effort to shoot more quickly and not get your sight alignment set back up, you were interrupting your "recovery phase."

Basically, our first shots are always good. Good shooting platform, good stability, good sight alignment, and a nice trigger pull. Unfortunately, this is where it goes awry for many shooters...after that first trigger pull. The gun is going to recoil, which kicks it up and either left/right for most shooters. You instinctively try to pull the gun back down into position, and instead of waiting for good sight alignment, you're already pulling the trigger when you're roughly 85% on line with where your initial shot was fired, thus the deviation in your shot group. Your groups usually progressively get worse in these sorts of scenarios. Remember that Bullseye style shooting is a game. In order to win the game, you have to have a perfect grasp of the fundamentals.

If you're right handed, I'd look into taking a little more of your trigger finger off of the trigger and stop anticipating recoil so much. Here's a little target diagnosis that matches the issues that most shooters run into with groups like yours:

So there you have it...while your "at rest" group isn't "TIGHT", it's very tight in comparison to your first "competition" group, which was sloppy and ran a little left and a whole lot up and to the left. I would stick to shooting strictly at 5-7 yards until you are ABSOLUTELY PERFECT. Then move on to 10-15 yards...until you feel you are absolutely perfect. Then...and only then, move to 25 yards.